30 August 2012

Preliminary Newborn Enrolment Policy – update

Not long to go now! Newborns will soon be able to be enrolled with a GP and PHO shortly after birth. Early engagement with primary care providers enables more immunisations on time, which gives better protection for babies, and better continuity of care.

From 1 October 2012:

-Anewborn may be submitted for funding before the full enrolment process is completed.

-A training toolkit is being developed for PHOs and general practices to assist with the changes.

-GPs who have been chosen as the newborn’s ongoing provider and accept a National Immunisation Register(NIR) notificationmayenter the newborn baby’s detailsinto their Patient Management System (PMS) (with a new patient status code of “B”[1]) and submit that newborn baby for funding in the next quarter.

-Full enrolment (signed enrolment form) must be completed (and the patient status changed to “E”) before the second quarter of funding.

-If the baby is taken to another GP, Accident and Medical clinic or after hours service for a ‘casual’ visit, there will be no Fee-For-Service (FFS) offsets (or clawback) in the first quarter the baby is enrolled.

-Babies coded as “B”in the first quarter will be exempt from enrolment eligibility audits. The “B” patient classification will only be accepted for funding by the Ministry’s Capitation Based Funding system in the first quarter following notification of birth.

Toolkit update

The toolkit for PHOs andGPs/practices in the preliminary newborn enrolment process is nearly completed. The toolkit will be finalised once final information from Practice Management System (PMS) vendors is received about how the newborn pre-enrolment process and B code will work in their systems. The toolkit is going to be supported by videos placed online (Podcasts) for MedTech, IntraHealth, and Houston with advice on how to use the toolkit and how the B code will work in each of the PMS vendors systems. The remaining PMS vendor is MyPractice. MyPractice will assign the B Code after it extracts practice registers so that no change in the enrolment process is required by MyPractice users so a video is not necessary for MyPractice.

Upgrading your PMS

Medtech, Intrahealth, Houston Medicaland MyPractice advise that the changes to practice management systems to implement the newborn pre-enrolment process and B code will be released into the latest version of your practice management system. This means that if you are not on the latest version and you wish to take advantage of the newborn pre-enrolment process and B code, you will need to upgrade your PMS to the latest version.

The help desk numbers for the PMS vendors are listed below should you wish to ask for advice about upgrading your PMS or about how the preliminary newborn enrolment process will work in your PMS.

0800 2 MEDTECH (0800 2 633 832)

0508 300 900 Intrahealth Systems

0800401111 Houston Medical

0800 MYPRACTICE

The Ministry’s Capitation Based Funding (CBF) System and CBF Business Rules

The CBF system will be ready to accept newborns coded B when registers are extracted on 19 November 2012. Business rules will be applied to ensure there are no Fee-For-Service deductions against newborns coded B. The CBF business rules have been updated to include the newborn preliminary enrolment business rules, and these changes were discussed at the 2 August 2012 PHO Service Agreement Amendment Protocol (PSAAP) meeting. The newborn inclusions to revised CBF business rules were accepted at this meeting.

If you have any queries please email the Ministry at

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[1]Most provider systems have registration codes embedded, but some do not. The vendors for the provider systems that do not have embedded registration codes will assign the B code after the provider’s enrolment register is extracted.